Retired MEP Ashley Mote, Elected by Ukip, found Guilty around £500K of Of Fraud.

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Former Ukip MEP Ashley Mote convicted of fraudulently claiming £500,000 in expensesHe submitted false claims for work that was never carried outLizzie Dearden

Friday 15 May 2015

A disgraced MEP is facing a possible jail sentence after being found guilty of fraudulently claiming almost £500,000 in expenses from the European Parliament.

Former Ukip member Ashley Mote, 79, went on to use the ill-gotten gains to fund his lengthy court battles, Southwark Crown Court heard.

He was convicted of 12 fraud-related offences between 2004 and 2010 today following a month-long trial and will be sentenced at a later date.

Mr Justice Stuart Smith released Mote on bail but warned of a likely prison sentence. European Union flags are pictured outside the European Commission building on October 24, 2014 in Brussels, Belgium Mote fraudulently claimed almost half a million pounds in expenses from the European Parliament

“He must appreciate that there is a very strong likelihood that a custodial sentence will follow,” the judge said.

Mote, of Binsted in Hampshire, was found guilty of four counts of obtaining a money transfer by deception, three of false accounting, two of fraud, and one each of acquiring criminal property, concealing criminal property and theft.

The prosecution claimed that the disgraced politician, who represented the South East of England, submitted numerous false claims for parliamentary assistance allowance to pay for work he claimed was carried out on his behalf.He also dishonestly obtained approximately €355,000 (£260,000) and £184,000 of allowances that he was not entitled to.

Jurors heard that two of the organisations he claimed were working on his behalf had previously campaigned against UK membership of the EU. Nigel Farage giving a speech during an earlier sitting of the European Parliament Mote was thrown out of Nigel Farage’s party before he took his seat in the European Parliament

But the Better Off Out Fund (Boof) and Direct Action Resistance To Tyranny (Dartt) never actually did any work for Mote, the court heard.

He made claims of £16,000 against Boof and £54,000 in relation to Dartt.

Between 2004, when he was elected as a Ukip candidate, and 2009, Mote claimed a total of £750,000 in parliamentary assistance allowance, including legitimate reimbursements.

Mote never represented Ukip in the European Parliament. Shortly before he took up his seat in 2004 he was thrown out of Nigel Farage’s party because he was being prosecuted by the Department for Work and Pensions for benefit fraud.

He sat as an independent MEP until 2009, when he decided not to stand for re-election.

Ashley Mote has personally mailed me his loosely worded refutation of the judgement as delineated in the rather shoddy report above, which is as follows:

Statement from Ashley Mote following trial at Southwark Crown Court15 May 2015

The verdicts against me, delivered after the jury’s lunch and deliberations lasting a mere 90 minutes or so, surprised and shocked me and my legal team.

The trial lasted a full four weeks. It was overwhelmed by hundreds of pages of detailed numerical analysis, much of it disputed. In the end, my five successive days of cross-examination and all the defence evidence and rebuttal counted for nothing. It was obviously ignored.

I am advised we have good grounds for an appeal, and work is starting on it immediately. Meanwhile, the judge has called for reports.

As my many supporters already know, I spent five years after my unexpected election to the European Parliament in 2004 fighting tirelessly towards the UK leaving the EU lunatic asylum, and meanwhile trying to protect the interests of constituents in SE England. Millions of Brits want the UK’s independence and freedom as a global trading nation restored. That was my aim, too.

As my eBook memoirs A Mote in Brussels’ Eye prove in great detail, I was increasingly supported in Brussels by a growing number of bureaucrats turned whistle-blowers, and others, who wanted the EU’s institutionalised corruption and mismanagement cleaned up. During those five years I spent enormous amounts of time and money pursuing that aim. The jury heard little of it.

Despite being based on my daily diary, the book itself was not allowed as evidence in court, except a few specific extracts relating to previous evidence.

This was a huge handicap, as were two other obstacles put in my way by the current judicial system. Despite being 79 and with serious, medically diagnosed, memory problems, I was not permitted to use notes in the witness box. Even worse was the prosecution’s freedom to use my court case in 2007, when the EU tried to exploit a legal situation to unseat me, as evidence against me in this case, too. I have effectively been tried twice on the issue of my benefit claim when I was out of work 20 years ago.

Together with the understandable current climate of cynicism against anyone in politics, with hindsight these factors combined to make a successful defence virtually impossible.

Surprised at the outcome? Yes. Bitter at the current judicial system? Yes. Beaten? No.

I was not in the court and did not follow this trial closely, however I did feel that a guilty verdict was inevitable when I first read the details of the charges. Ashley’s crime would seem to have been based largely on arrogance and the claim that he was entitled to use public funds to both defend and prosecute in the courts, just because he was an MEP!

The benefits claims made by Ashley were made prior to his election to public office so it seemed unreasonable that he was entitled to use his office to fund defence of these allegations from the public purse in the manner a defence could be mounted for allegations of an offence whilst in office that might be described as resultant from his office.

It would seem, from the verdict that I was right in my assumption and thus it seems that as night follows day a guilty verdict on the ancilliary charges would follow.

As a friend who has known Ashley since long before his election and rise to prominence I find it unfortunate that he finds himself in this situation, but leave judgement to the courts who have heard the evidence and studied the facts, though would caution that the courts are not always right!

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